The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will make a final decision about whether to license one of two proposed interim storage sites for spent nuclear fuel “shortly after” it completes environmental impact statements for the project this summer, the agency’s spent fuel licensing project manager said this week.
NRC is “currently close to completing the final safety evaluation report” for the proposed Interim Storage Partners (ISP) consolidated interim storage facility in west Texas, said Jose Cuadrado, project manager at the Spent Fuel Licensing Branch of the agency’s Nuclear Material Security and Safeguards division, during a commissioners’ meeting Tuesday. The agency is also “on target” to finish up an environmental impact statement for the proposed ISP site by July, Cuadrado said.
Cuadrado didn’t say exactly when a licensing decision would be made after the environmental review is complete in July.
As for the other proposed interim storage site — Holtec International’s in southeastern New Mexico — the commission is still waiting for the company to provide additional information for a federal safety evaluation report. The agency asked Holtec for more detail on changes it made to the facility’s designs and applications, Cuadrado said.
The agency’s Request for Additional Information (RAI) went to Holtec May 20, according to a press release dated Monday. This is NRC’s second request for safety information regarding the proposed Holtec site. In a March letter to the company the agency said it wouldn’t be able to complete its required safety evaluation in May as originally planned since Holtec didn’t provide enough information in the first round of RAIs it sent to the company last year.
A spokesperson for Holtec said via email Tuesday that the company “will provide complete responses of the highest quality to the NRC containing the requested additional information that demonstrates the large margins of safety that are inherent in the design of the … CISF facility.”
An NRC spokesman told RadWaste Monitor via email Tuesday that the “extensive” review and approval process for the request “took longer than expected.” In its March letter, the commission said it would provide its second round of information requests to Holtec “within the next month.”
The RAI includes commission staff questions about the proposed site’s resilience to natural disasters and other environmental phenomena like settling earth. Staff also asked Holtec for more detail on the structural and technical soundness of the proposed facility.
Cuadrado didn’t say Tuesday how long, or whether, the information request could delay a licensing decision for the proposed Holtec site. NRC said in March that it wouldn’t be able to complete the safety evaluation in May as previously planned. The security review is a prerequisite for licensing alongside the site’s separate environmental review, which is also supposed to be done this summer, the agency has said.
